The Commonweal Podcast

Catholics have been thinking about vocations for a long time—and not only in terms of becoming a priest or member of a religious order.

The Church teaches that every person is called by God to do something particular, to play some unique role in the ongoing creation and salvation of the world. 

But what happens when our working lives don't align with our true vocations? What should we do when we find ourselves stuck doing jobs we don’t like?

Fr. James Martin knows something about that, having spent his teenage summers and most of his twenties doing a variety of odd jobs.

It’s the subject of his new book, Work in Progress: Confessions of a Busboy, Dishwasher, Caddy, Usher, Factory Worker, Bank Teller, Corporate Tool, and Priest. 

On this episode, Fr. Martin joins associate editor Griffin Oleynick to speak about what that work has meant to him, and how he still draws from its lessons in humility and grace.

Plus: Heidi Schlumpf reports on the latest developments in American Catholicism, including the Trump administration’s conflict with the Vatican, the recent rise in Catholic conversions, and the fiftieth anniversary of the Women’s Ordination Conference. 

For further reading:



Ryan Burge on the “great sort” in American religion



Heidi Schlumpf on the Women’s Ordination Conference

Massimo Faggioli on “cool” Catholicism and new baptisms

Too many of us spend too much time on our phones. 

We know by now—through whistleblower reports, congressional hearings, and our daily lived experience—that these devices, neutral in themselves, can and often do cause serious harm. 

Can we learn to live without them again? Would we even want to? 

On this episode, D. Graham Burnett, a professor of the history of science at Princeton and co-author, with the Friends of Attention, of the new book Attensity: A Manifesto of the Attention Liberation Movement, speaks with associate editor Regina Munch about how we got into this predicament, and where we should go. 

Burnett argues that before we can answer questions like those, we first need to understand how major tech firms have used “human fracking” to amass billions of dollars in profit.

Resistance, Burnett says, is indeed possible: we can take back our brains, and our lives, but only if we’re willing to fight for the human activities and habits of mind that nourish real connections with ourselves and others.

For further reading: 

Alexander Stern on AI and the crisis of meaning

Antonio Spadaro on Pope Leo’s critique of Silicon Valley

Antón Barba-Kay on how the concept of attention has evolved

When he was missioned to Beirut last fall, Fr. Doug Jones, a recently ordained Jesuit priest, expected to spend his time conducting research and administering sacraments. 

But since the beginning of Israel’s war with Hezbollah on March 2, Fr. Jones finds himself scanning social media for air strike warnings and handing out towels to migrants and other displaced people living in his parish church. 

Israel has been intensifying its attacks on Lebanon for more than one month, and has made no secret of its ambitions to invade and eventually annex the southern part of the country. 

Meanwhile more than twelve hundred Lebanese have been killed and one million have been displaced—a growing humanitarian catastrophe with no end in sight. 

On this episode, Fr. Jones speaks from Beirut with associate editor Griffin Oleynick about the war in Lebanon, and how he and the Church there have responded. 

For further reading: 



The editors condemn Trump’s war on Iran



Joseph Amar on Christianity in the Middle East

Zeead Yaghi explains the economic toll of Lebanese sectarianism

Hosts and Commonweal contributors Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins and Nick Tabor chat with Gary Dorrien, professor at Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary, about the life and legacy of Jesse Jackson and the Black social gospel tradition. They explore Dorrien's own intellectual journey from rural Michigan to the academy, his groundbreaking trilogy on the Black social gospel, Jackson's relationship with Martin Luther King Jr., the Rainbow Coalition presidential campaigns of the 1980s, and what Jackson's career reveals about the enduring ties between the Black church and progressive politics.Episode production and original music by Joel Myers.

Hosts and Commonweal contributors Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins and Nick Tabor chat with Jonathan Sheehan, professor of European history at UC Berkeley, about his new book, On the Altar: A History of Sacrifice from the Sacred to the Secular (Princeton University Press). Together, they explore the long, contested history of Christian sacrifice, from the early church and the cult of the martyrs through the Reformation and into the secular modern world—and discuss what the language of sacrifice still offers us today.

 

Episode production and original music by Joel Myers.